I broaden my shoulders, emboldened. ‘Maybe if you paid a bit more fucking attention to what your kid likes—’
‘Sawyer?’ Noah suddenly appears by the island counter, clinging to it warily with his eyes wide and blaring at me. Because he just heard me argue and swear at his dad.
Shit. I don’t need him to see me like this, but I’m not done with Gray just yet. I’m too riled up.
Desperate to keep Noah out of this, for his sake, I wave him back, using a sterner voice than usual to emphasise the importance that he follows. ‘Noah, go back to the table.’
‘Don’t tell him what to do,’ Gray growls at me.
My eyes roll and I snap, ‘Respectfully, Gray—fuck off.’
‘Sawyer, don’t swear!’ Noah scolds me, as Gray also rebukes with something else I don’t hear, and it all comes crashing down—
‘Leave it, Noah!’ I yell unexpectedly, regret seeping into my bones when I see Noah’s eyes flash at me. When I see the tears beginning to well. When I see the golden image he’s always had of me shatter in front of him.
Fuck.
That has my mind finally quietening, my raised voice stunning me just as much as Noah. Because it sounded scarily close to my dad’s …
I was just overwhelmed. I lashed out by mistake, that’s all.
I’m not like my dad. I would never mean to upset him.
I amnotlike my dad.
I try to move towards Noah. ‘I didn’t mean—’
But Gray’s hand is on my shoulder, spinning me back to him. ‘Don’t tell my kid off.’
It distracts me long enough as I push his grip off me for Noah to run off before I can apologise, and the sound of the back door shutting echoes through the house.
‘I need to—’ I start but then decide Noah’s too important to waste a breath explaining to Gray that I need to apologise. He says something after me as I march out the kitchen towards the back door.
Swinging it open, I croon my neck either way to find Noah—yet it’s silent. Nothing but the whisper of falling snow and wind through the distant trees. No sign of Noah.
I’m certain I heard him run out here. Maybe he’s hiding.
‘Noah?’ I call out.
Gray storms out then, after me. He stops short when he notices my confusion, his own brows knitting together as he scours the back deck, also discovering no sign of his son. ‘Where is he?’
‘I don’t know,’ I admit, squinting to try to make out if he’s anywhere in the darkness, perhaps he’s tucked himself down by the stairs or something, but it’s to no avail.
Maybe he never came out here. Maybe he ran upstairs.
Gray must think the same because he grunts out a sigh then flies back inside. I catch the door behind him before it can slam and follow, calling out for Noah alongside him, but still no answer. As Gray heads towards the front door, Irush up the stairs, checking around the rooms, finding only stillness and silence. Roiling builds in my stomach as I listen to the voices downstairs, the lack of reply when Honey and May’s voices start calling for Noah too.
He can’t have gone far, surely …
An overwhelming wave of dread comes crashing down on me then when the only other possibility creeps through my mind. I can barely catch my own breath—it comes to me shallowly, my heartrate skyrocketing as I race back down the stairs and onto the deck. I don’t even chance looking back to where Honey might be in the house. God, what will she think? That I just shouted at her son—the most important thing in her life—and now he’s run off. Ihaveto find him.
My eyes dart everywhere, straining to look as far into the distance as I can and—
That’s when I see them and my stomach drops.
The little footprints in the snow running off into the huge ranch that surrounds us.
Fuck.